The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) today pitched for interoperability in the prepaid payment instruments (PPI) space, saying RBI should allow for wallet-to-wallet transfers in the fledgling space.

"People who have wallets should be able to transfer funds to other PPI users like them. There is a case for interoperability and I think RBI should allow the same," NPCI managing director A P Hota told reporters on the sidelines of a company event here.

Many banks and also private companies like Paytm, Oxigen etc are very active in this space.

At present, seamless fund transfers are possible from a wallet to a bank account, but wallet-to-wallet transfers are not possible, he said.

Hota said that there are 16 PPIs operational at present who stand to benefit from such a liberalisation from the central bank.

The RBI-promoted NPCI has put forth this need before the central bank multiple times, including during regular review meetings, he added.

When asked about the possible concerns for RBI which might be a deterrent, Hota pointed to the concerns on the AML (anti-money laundering) front, saying the KYC norms for opening a wallet are not as stringent as for opening banks.

He, however, was quick to add that RBI may possibly be waiting for awarding the Payments Bank (PB) licences which are due soon before taking a call on this demand.

It can be noted that over 40 entities, many of them existing PPIs, have applied to turn into PBs as RBI ushers in the era of differentiated banking.

Meanwhile, Hota said there is a need to have one more One Time Password generating company as the existing three companies in the segment are finding it difficult to process the requests at some times, resulting in issues at the customers' end.